Protect your family from air pollution:

Check news reports on the radio, TV, or online for pollen reports or daily air quality conditions. Or visit EPA's Air Now for air quality info and avoid outdoor activity on bad air days particularly for people with asthma or other respiratory diseases.

After spending time outdoors, wash off pollen that may have collected on your face, skin, or hair.

148 cases of Dengue Fever were reported between 1995-2005, and 66 counties have a type of mosquito that can transmit the virus (as of 2005). In 2009, Key West reported 22 cases, the state's first locally transmitted cases in more than 40 years,7 and more cases have been reported since then.

220 cases of West Nile virus were reported to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) between 1999-2010.8

846 cases of Lyme disease were reported to CDC between 1990-2008.9

Protect your family from infectious diseases:

When planning international travel, check with the CDC's website for information on recent disease outbreaks and take appropriate precautions.

During mosquito season at home, apply insect repellent with 20-30 percent DEET in the mornings and early evenings.

Florida's Climate Adaptation Strategy

Air Pollution:

Florida's climate preparedness strategy includes the following measures to prevent health threats from worsening air quality due to climate change:

Ensure that air quality policies provide an adequate level of safety to protect against known risks under the current climate.

Ensure that new air quality policies incorporate potential changes in risks from climate change to ensure appropriate design and adequate mitigation factors.

Improve projections of potential public health risks from the interaction of increasingly intense and long heat waves with existing air-quality problems in major urban areas.

Extreme Heat:

Florida's climate preparedness strategy only addresses the interaction of heat waves and existing air-quality problems in major urban areas and does not describe other measures to protect public health from extreme heat.

Florida's climate preparedness strategy includes the following measure to prevent increases in health threats from increased extreme heat days due to climate change:

Improve projections of potential public health risk from the interaction of increasingly intense and long heat waves with existing air-quality problems in major urban areas.

Infectious Disease:

Florida's climate preparedness strategy includes measures to research and assess increased health threats from infectious diseases due to climate change.

Florida's climate preparedness strategy includes the following measures to prevent increased health threats from infectious diseases as a result of climate change:

Assess the potential in Florida for increases in the transmission of vector-borne infectious diseases (e.g. dengue, malaria, yellow fever) resulting from the spread of vectors from other climate change affected areas.

Increase the focus of medical schools at state universities to include diseases that can be attributed to climate change.

Promote the research and development of biopharmaceuticals for treating disease that can be attributed to climate change.

Drought:

In Florida's climate preparedness strategy, drought is identified as a health-related impact of climate change, but no preparedness measures are proposed.

Flooding:

Florida's climate preparedness strategy only addresses the potential for flooding to damage drinking water infrastructure and does not describe other measures to protect public health from extreme heat.

Florida's climate preparedness strategy includes the following measure to prevent increased health threats from infectious diseases as a result of climate change:

Ensure that water treatment facilities are able to safely capture, store, treat, and distribute potable water as the climate changes, creating possible subsequent changes in rainfall patterns, sea level rise, and flooding.

Extreme Weather:

Florida's climate preparedness strategy includes the following measures to address increased health threats from an increase in extreme weather events due to climate change:

Measures to protect public health from the increasing threat of extreme heat, storms, floods, wildfires, and increased risk of infectious diseases.

In addition, the strategy recognizes the increased risk of vector-borne diseases. Florida's climate preparedness strategy aims to promote the research and development of biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of diseases that can be attributed to climate change.

Florida's Changing Climate

Average winter rainfall has increased, while average summer rainfall has decreased, and storms have become more frequent.1

With climate change, residents can expect to see more public health risks from storms, flooding and waterborne illnesses, infectious diseases like dengue fever, drought, extreme heat waves, and declining air quality.

Florida has a strategy to prepare for the health impacts of climate change.